This is a tough post to write....and at the same time, pretty easy. Because I've done the work.
On the TV show 'The West Wing,' Deputy Chief of Staff Josh goes thru a recovery process after he was nearly killed by a gunman. Long story short, he gets to the root of the problem with the help of a trauma specialist.
He asks, "What happens when I remember it?"
The specialist says, "It's okay to remember as long as you don't relive it."
Not long ago, someone posed the question: would you repeat your high school years if given the chance? My answer: no way in hell.
I had a bad, bad childhood. Abandonment, confusion, inconsistency. Mom and Dad divorced when I was 7; by her account, they never should have married. Both were trying to find relief from their own horrible upbringings. Because my brother and sister both needed a ton of attention, I made a vow that I would never ask my mother for anything. That was my idea of helping her out. By 4th grade, I was essentially raising myself.
Dad was rarely around. We certainly could not set a calendar by him; visitation was a crapshoot...will he show up? When he did, would he beat down my psyche into rubble? Count on it. All the while, he was touting his public persona as a clergyman, top notch musician, and paragon of virtue.
We knew better. Actually, we didn't...we were just confused as hell.
By the summer of my junior year in high school, he was a Chaplain at Luke Air Force Base outside Phoenix. I decided to pack up and move across the country to live with him in Glendale. To connect....reconnect. In essence, I was trying to repair a relationship that I had no part in breaking.
My mom never let on how terrified she was, but she let me go.
Dad was excited; there was a relatively new high school 3 blocks away, Apollo High, established in 1970. Very good reviews.
We show up. "Sorry, you're outside the district."
Where do I belong? (wow, that question is the story of my life). Glendale High, established in 1911. Literally and figuratively across the tracks.
When I saw the above sign last month, I chuckled. Either things have changed, or someone used a ton of whitewash. 'BEST High Schools'?
Very low academic standards, but the school compensated by having many gang fights. The most intense girl on girl battles I've ever seen. Fingernails gouging, clothes shredding...
I was the only junior in the mostly senior advanced calculus class. The rest of my schedule was a joke; my English teacher had me reading a book i covered as a freshman or sophomore back in NJ.
Dad forced me to take Junior ROTC. Can't say I was interested, but anything to make him love me more, right? ROTC starts with learning insignia and rank, pretty straightforward stuff, rote memorization. Within about two or three weeks, I'm promoted to third in command of the whole damned unit.
One fun memory: band practice on the field below. We ended a song with all of us on the sideline in front of the bleachers, and after the final note, we smartly snapped our horns down together. I popped my horn so hard that the tuning slide went flying onto the grass...the instructor was THRILLED at my commitment.
And that track was the first (and only) place I ran 60 seconds over 400m. But I digress...
One hot day, I'm running the two miles from school to the apartment, right down the main drag. Shirt off, gym bag in my hand. A cop pulls me over and asks what's in the bag. 'Uh, sweaty shirt and gym clothes.' He searches it, good riddance. Do I look stupid enough to rob someone and then run down the sidewalk of the busiest street in town? Seems that way.
Then it gets good.
I come home one day and my devout, God-fearing father is screaming at me. "I WILL THROW YOU INTO THE STREET!"
Evidently, I've been smoking pot in the apartment.
Wow, that's news to me. I'm the 'good' kid of the three, the responsible one with the good grades, sports nut, musician, never in trouble. EVER. And oh by the way; the one kid who gave up everything he knew in order to move across the country and live with a man I didn't know very well. I'm going to sacrifice all of that by smoking pot....in the apartment?
The lampshade was touching the bulb, and the burning smelled a bit like marijuana.
He was furious at being proven wrong. Me? I was done with this.
My mom had already bought me a round trip ticket so I could come back to NJ at Christmas. When I arrived, I told her I was coming back for good once the semester ended in January. So that meant an extra one-way flight that Mom immediately booked.
I went back to Glendale after the holiday and told Dad. He was furious.
Sometimes I didn't know whether I was coming or going with him.
I had a month to finish. Dad did what Dad does; he ran away. Took an assignment in Saudi Arabia and left his 16 year old son to live alone for three weeks. Seriously.
My job was bagging groceries at the base commissary at the time. Suddenly, I had a purpose; to pay my mom back for the extra flight I 'caused.'
The job was no pay, only tips. Something like 16 registers: we'd show up for our shift, and the supervisor would deploy us. We'd bag the groceries, walk them out to the parking lot, load up the cars, hopefully get a tip, then wash, rinse, repeat.
The commissary was across the street from the flight line. I remember finishing with a customer, then hearing the roar of an F-15 taking off on full afterburner at twilight. Gear up, flaps up, straight up...at the time, an F-15 was one of the few jets that could accelerate straight up. Awesome sight.
This is where I learned to hustle. I had fixed shifts of 4pm-7pm. I'd show up early, and the head guy would yell at me for taking time from someone else. I didn't care, I was there to get that coin. So I'd enter the store far away from his station so he couldn't see me, and I'd literally run back inside from the parking lot. $7 an hour in 1982 wasn't bad money.
In the last week, I ran out of food. Because I had a financial goal to meet, I ate cheese sandwiches for that final week. I might have splurged and bought some orange juice.
I left the car for Dad's friend to retrieve. Probably 3 ounces of gas (see 'financial goal to meet'). The friend told me later that the car went empty when he retrieved it....not my problem.
Got myself to Sky Harbor Airport and flew home. Back in 1982, people could meet arriving flights at the gate, remember that? I walked off the plane, saw Mom, and without saying a fucking word handed her my wallet with $221 in it. She had no idea what it was for or what I endured.
One of the worst days of my life, and one of the best, too.
How could this outcome have been better? Years later, I thought I could have taken him up on his 'offer' to throw me into the street. Here's how: wait until he went to bed, then pack up my clothes, get a cab to the airport, call Mom, and fly home incognito. I wouldn't have even left a fucking note.
I went back to Somerville High and struggled, given the much higher academic standards. Failed my first ever test. Swallowed a handful of aspirin and had my stomach pumped.
And I reconnected with an amazing teacher, Rick Coulter, who had no idea he was a father figure that I needed. A man with high standards and the compassion to go with it. One of the first letters I wrote from the US Naval Academy was to him, with the requisite picture of my shaved head. 35 years later, I wrote him another letter and described how he helped me grow.
Here's Rick and I in Boulder last May, a long-overdue reunion.
Recently, I had a day long layover in Phoenix, so I went back to Glendale. I remembered without reliving.
Well, maybe I relived a little. But it passed quickly.
A few years ago, while on a trip with Zoe, I told her that if I didn't know how to deal with her at times, I'd remember how my dad dealt with me.
And I'd do the opposite.
Promise kept.
